


The bigger picture

by moriann



Category: Push (2009)
Genre: F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 15:13:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5502440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moriann/pseuds/moriann
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you keep seeing the world in small snapshots of the future, it's sometimes difficult to notice the bigger picture.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The bigger picture

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Doranwen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doranwen/gifts).



Cassie was getting so frustrated she was about to throw her notebook at the wall. All the visions she got this week were completely useless and were getting them no closer to their goal. All they had to do was to steal the security token from the Division honcho staying at this hotel and they might finally, after almost a decade on the run, be one step ahead.

They just had to come up with a plan that did not result in them ending up dead in the process, but every plan they'd discussed in the last two days ended up with casualties eventually. Those few pictures that did not show at least one of them dead conveyed absolutely no useful information.

She tore out all the pages and spread the ones where they didn't obviously fail over the bed next to each other, trying to figure out the common element. There was one with the two of them sitting on the bed in the hotel room they were in now, the token lying on the bedside table. Another had them dancing next to what looked like the neon in the hotel bar downstairs, with the device floating through the room towards their clasped hands. The third had her and Nick sitting at a restaurant table, the token sticking out of her pocket. She was trying to figure out what the common denominator was, because all of it just looked completely random -- aside from them apparently succeeding in the theft. Then she noticed a vague hint of gold around her finger. It looked like a random line at first, but it was there on all three pictures -- and come to think of it, she could also see it drawn on Nick's hand.

 _That's it_ , she thought, _that's our plan_. Division wasn't looking for a married couple, so this way they'd probably get overlooked. And anyway, if anyone was about to look, they could just kiss and hide their faces. They needed a little misdirection to get close enough for Nick to be able to slide the token out of their target's pocket. It might just work.

She was _brilliant_.

\---

Her plan was a terrible idea. The worst. Turned out, pretending to be a couple was not that much different from what they were doing before, except for the little things, like when Nick put an arm around her waist as they were leaving the elevator, and drew her close. Or just now, when he brushed a kiss on the corner of her mouth, as they were getting up from the dinner table. It seemed almost absent-minded, which was throwing her for a loop, because keeping up a charade should probably take effort, right?

"Cassie? Everything okay?" Nick asked and she realised she was staring at him.

"Absolutely. A-okay, all engines go, ready to proceed," she said, rapid-fire. At least now he was staring too and they were in this awkwardness together, but she needed to collect herself quickly if they didn't want to blow their cover. Although at the moment, it was probably distracting her more than it was distracting their target and his bodyguards.

In her defence, Cassie thought, she was entirely justified in not seeing the entire picture when she was looking at her drawings. She was usually trying to spot things that were going to kill them, not ones that were, in hindsight, there for quite some time. In context, she'd probably call the slightly crooked smile he was giving her a little bit besotted, but this was the same smile he had given her so many times before in the last few months. She wondered how she could've missed it, but Nick didn't act like anything was different and the uncertainty of how much of this, if any, was an act, was nerve-wracking. Maybe she'd just have to up her game to clue him in.

She leaned in and went up on her tiptoes to whisper to him, drawing her lips deliberately close enough to almost touch his ear, "Let's walk toward the exit, that should bring us right by Campbell. Be ready to make a move." She tugged his hand to steer him in that direction and kept her eyes up ahead as they were leaving. After a few dozen steps, she felt the slight weight of the token settle in her pocket.

As soon as they were back in the lobby and out of Division's sight, she whirled around and threw her arms around Nick's neck, grinning up at him. Nick was smiling too, the same smile she saw him give her during dinner, the one that went all the way up to his eyes. She felt his hands settle on her hips and draw her closer.

“Ready to leave? We’ve got what we came for, we should probably move on now before anyone notices,” he said. She was giddy with their success and it called for a celebration, but they were just standing there, so it was clearly up to Cassie to be the brains of this outfit again. He was still looking at her like she’s hung the moon but not making any move whatsoever, even with her right there. “Time to drop the cover and go,” Nick added and Cassie wondered how he could possibly be so blind -- but then again, she had also just added two and two together, so she probably shouldn't throw stones. It was time for drastic measures, so she tugged his head down and pressed her lips against his.

Nick's eyes went wide for a moment but it looked like he was finally catching on, drawing out the kiss and deepening it, his hands setting at her waist, his thumbs drawing maddeningly distracting circles on her hipbones.

“We should probably really leave,” he said, breaking away a little. 

"Or we could totally go back upstairs and finish the night with a bang," she said with a grin.

He shook his head at her fondly, but he was still beaming when he said, “That was a truly terrible pun, Cassie,” so she didn't really need her abilities to see he liked the suggestion. And anyway, she couldn't wait to see it with her own eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Big thanks to 1001cranes for brainstorming the story with me and to alby for the beta.


End file.
